


after

by jeeno2



Series: and in the end [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Season/Series 08 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 20:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18645472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: After the Battle of Winterfell, there will be plenty of time to decide what comes next.





	after

**Author's Note:**

> Here: have 2000 words of utterly pointless post-Battle of Winterfell fluff.
> 
> hi I'm soft and also trash

Arya grits her teeth as she gingerly lowers herself into the bath Sansa drew for her.

Under normal circumstances a warm bath is a luxury.  But right now Arya does not welcome it. Her body was so cold for so long tonight, kept warm by nothing but fear and the rapid beat of her heart inside her ribcage, that the water’s heat is almost unbearable now. It stings, bites, against her chapped skin.

But Sansa would not allow Arya to do anything else until she promised to spend some time in a tub full of water as hot as she could stand.

“You need rest. To wash up a little.” Her sister’s eyes had been shiny with unshed tears as they roamed over her body. Took in her many injuries.

As much as Arya hates the idea of soaking in a bath while the dead are still piled up so high on Winterfell’s grounds it will take years to set things to rights, Sansa wouldn’t hear of her refusing. And so Arya grudgingly agreed to do as her sister bid her.

Wincing against the pain in her side, Arya leans forward to grab the damp cloth Sansa draped over the rim of the tub before taking her leave. But now that the fear and the adrenaline have faded, even that small movement is too much. The fresh stitches in Arya’s side pull taut against her raw, torn flesh. She shuts her eyes against the pain and groans under her breath, easing herself gently back against the tub’s edge.

She knows she’s damn lucky to be alive. They all are. She reminds herself to focus on that as she struggles to tamp down her frustration over everything that was lost today.

And… she needs to find Gendry. He wasn’t in the Great Hall with the others when she got back. People told her they’d seen him just moment before--but it isn’t enough. She needs to _know_ he’s uninjured. That he’s alive.

She needs to see it, needs to see _him_ , with her own eyes.

There hadn’t been time for a proper goodbye when the battle horns sounded in the night. There hadn’t been time for any goodbye at all. They’d jumped from that bed as soon as they’d heard them, pulling on their clothes and their boots and grabbing for weapons.

When she came to him in the night, before the battle started, she hadn’t thought she’d live to see the dawn. But now that she has…

She needs to know he’s still alive, too. And unharmed.

There will be time to decide what comes next, after.

 

* * *

 

By the time Arya has been in the bath so long her fingers have started to prune a fist raps twice, loudly, on the open door to her chambers.

She looks up, and Gendry is there, staring right back at her, eyes so wide it’s like he can’t believe she’s really here. That she isn't a ghost, or some kind of hallucination. His jaw is clenched--from nerves, or fear; maybe both--and his lips are pressed together tightly in a thin line.

A small part of her wonders how he managed to find her here. At how Sansa would ever allow a man into her younger sister's chambers while she was bathing. Then again, Sansa is more than a bit distracted at the moment. Either way, Gendry must have come to her immediately, as soon as he got back from wherever he’d been, because he’s still in the flimsy patchwork armor all the fighters were assigned and coated in smears of dirt and dried blood.

But his eyes are clear and bright, and he moves easily. Like a man not seriously injured. He smiles at her, relief washing over his features now that he’s seen her. And…

He is the most beautiful thing Arya has ever seen.

“You’re back,” he says simply. His words are breathy, and so quiet she almost can’t hear them over the din of all the people downstairs.

She nods. Words have never been Arya’s strong suit but this, at least, is something she knows how to answer. “Yes,” she says. “I am.”

His smile grows, making his face light up in a way Arya finds almost unbearably distracting.

“Can I…” he begins, but then trails off. His eyes dart to the far corner of the room. A faint blush starts to rise on his cheeks, despite the fact that he had her naked in his bed less than twelve hours ago. He fidgets nervously with the hem of his tunic. “Can I… um.  Come in?”

Arya’s stomach does an odd, but not entirely unpleasant sort of flip at his question. At the bashful, endearing way he can’t quite meet her eyes.

“You want to watch me bathe? Really?” She’s teasing him now, she knows that, but she’s filled with so much giddy relief that he’s here that _she’s_ here and that they’re both still alive she just can’t help herself. “Why? It’s not very interesting.”

He huffs out a loud breath and goes back to fidgeting with the hem of his tunic. His blush deepens. Arya has to pinch herself to keep from laughing at how unbelievable, incredible, this situation is.

“Yeah. I do.” He shrugs. Feigning nonchalance. Like keeping young women company while they bathe is something he did every day back in Kings’ Landing. “I thought I could maybe… help you. Or something.”

Arya blinks at him, surprised. “You want to help me?” she asks. “How?”

He sniffs and looks a little offended. He still won’t meet her eyes. “They told me you were hurt,” he says, very quietly. His shoulders slump a little. “And that you might not be able to care for your wounds on your own, or... or wash up properly.”

Arya looks down at her body. She’s been here nearly an hour, completely submerged in warm water, but her legs, her arms, are still coated with thick splatters of dried blood. And not just hers.  

“Oh,” she says, lamely. “But… but I _can_ take care of myself.”

Perhaps recognizing that claim for the bold faced lie it is, Gendry takes a tentative step into the room. And then another, until there’s less than three feet of space between where she sits and he stands.   

At last, he looks down at her. “Can you, though? Take care of this yourself?” He swallows, and Arya’s eyes watch as his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “If you’d rather I leave, I can. I could always--”

_No._

“No,” she says, very quickly. Arya looks towards the damp cloth at the other end of the tub. She still hasn’t managed to retrieve it. She closes her eyes and sighs resignedly.  “Please don’t leave. I… probably..." She swallows. Closes her eyes again. "I probably do need help.”

It’s all the encouragement Gendry needs. He closes the short distance between them in two strides and kneels beside his tub. He grabs the washcloth in one large hand and dips it into the warm water.  “Then let me help you. Please, Arya.”

He brings the cloth to her bare legs, but she lets out an involuntary yelp before it reaches her. He freezes, hand suspended in midair less than an inch from her body.  

“You don’t need to do this, Gendry,” she says, her words tumbling over each other in a rush. “Sansa, or Missandei, can help me, and--”

She knows she probably sounds like she’s panicking, but in the moment she _is_ panicking, and she’s doing far too much of it to care what she sounds like. She’s Arya Stark of Winterfell, she takes care of herself and doesn’t rely on others to help her, _ever,_ and--

Gendry sits back on his haunches and regards her carefully.  The way he’s sitting causes his tunic to rise up a little in the back, and in spite of everything Arya can’t help but let her eyes wander over the thin strip of exposed skin.

“Everyone else is in a debriefing with the queen,” he says, very quietly. “Sansa, and Missandei. Everyone. It’ll last hours.” A pause. “There’s no one here to do it but me.” Apparently deciding the matter settled, Gendry dips the cloth into the hot water again and wrings it out.  

She swallows. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He looks at her, one side of his mouth quirking up into a small smile. “And besides. I’m better at this sort of thing than they are.”

Despite the knots of nervous tension roiling in the pit of her stomach Arya can’t help but laugh at that. “Oh? Is that so?”

“Mmm,” he confirms. Arya suspects he’s trying to look, and sound, haughty.  But he’s smiling in spite of himself. It’s a good look on him, smiling is. She’ll have to encourage him to do it more often. Now that they have more time. “I’m definitely better at this than they are.”

Without another word, Gendry presses the warm cloth in his hand to one of Arya’s legs and begins to gently scrub away the visible remnants of this horrible night.

Arya has, of course, washed her own body many hundreds of times before.  Until now she’s always thought of bathing as a perfunctory chore; a thing that must be done before she can get on with more important things.  Never in her life has she thought of bathing as something pleasurable--but right now, as Gendry gently scrubs her legs clean with the soft washcloth and runs the palms of his large, calloused hands over her highly-sensitized skin, she has to dig hier fingernails into her palms to keep from groaning aloud.

He is thorough and methodical with her, and yet gentle, leaving no part of her legs untouched. As his palms brush over the skin behind her knees with the washcloth it feels like every single nerve ending in her body is centered beneath right his fingertips.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he says quietly, but no less fervently for that as he slides the warm cloth up, and up, her body. It trails over her stomach, stopping purposefully and deliberately just short of her breasts. She swallows, trying to remember how to breathe. “I thought we were both going to…”

He doesn’t continue the thought. But there’s no need. Arya knows what he’s thinking, because she thought it too. She closes her eyes as he works and moves over her, the dual conflicting sensations of physical pleasure and guilt over how quickly she’d fled his bed earlier tonight tangling together unpleasantly in her gut.

“Gendry…” she begins, weakly.

“But you’re _alive_ ,” he says again, emphatically, cutting her off. His voices catches on the last word. He pulls the cloth away from her body and Arya looks at him. His eyes are glossy, too bright. He is overcome. But so isn’t she. “You’re _alive_ Arya. You saved us all, and--”

Before he can get out the rest of the words Arya leans forward and gently presses her lips to his. His lips are chapped, but so are hers, and he whimpers a little in the back of his throat as she slowly, gently, cups his face in both hands. Pulls him closer.

It's nothing like the kiss from last night, all teeth and tongues, borne out of desperation and the knowledge they would never have this chance again. This kiss is gentle, and nurturing, the way his large hands come up to cup the back of her head a sweet promise of all the time they have now that the battle against death has been won.

The kiss is too short, over almost before it began. Before she can properly register it happening he’s already pulling back from her, breathing hard.

“Let me take care of you, Arya.” His words are choked. Pleading. “Please.”

Somehow, Arya knows he’s not just talking about kissing her. Or the bath.

She swallows hard, heart is pounding in her ears.

She nods.

The answering smile he gives her in return would outshine the summer sun.

“Sit back against the tub,” he says, his words gentler than any caress.

She complies. As he pours a cup full of warm water over her head, and threads his dexterous fingers through her matted hair, she decides they can figure out all the rest later.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on twitter at [jeenonamit](https://twitter.com/jeenonamit/)  
> I'm also on tumblr at [jeeno2](https://jeeno2.tumblr.com/)  
> 


End file.
